1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a facsimile apparatus, and more particularly to an operation of the apparatus required when a recording paper has run out.
2. Description of the Related Art
A facsimile apparatus generally has a roll of recording paper. When the apparatus detects the fact that the recording paper has nearly run out, the apparatus does not receive an image data even if the apparatus is called, and instead supplies a transmission error message to the transmission side and also supplies a demand to an exchanger to open the line. Thus, the transmission/reception of image data is disabled. In this case, there occurs no problem if an operator on the reception side immediately finds that the recording paper runs short and supplies a new one. If the recording paper is not supplied, however, the transmission/reception of image data is kept disabled.
Under the situation, in order to prevent the disabling of transmission/reception due to the running short of recording paper when the operator is not present at the receiver side or does not find the lack of recording paper, there has been proposed a facsimile apparatus having a memory for storing the transmitted image data when the recording paper has run out before the reception of image data or when the recording paper becomes run out during the reception of image data, instead of printing the data on the recording paper. This function is called a substitute reception. The stored image data is read out and printed on the recording paper, when the recording paper is supplied to the apparatus.
In this type of apparatus, however, if the memory is filled with image data with the recording paper being not supplied to the apparatus, the same problem, as mentioned above, will occur. In general, the memory has a small capacity corresponding only to the image data of several pages; therefore, if the operator is not present at the receiving side, the memory is soon filled with data and the transmission/reception is disabled. Though it is possible to increase the capacity of the memory, this will incur an increase in manufacturing cost of the facsimile apparatus.